Anti-trans legislation makes it legal to conduct unnecessary surgery on intersex children.
On March 30, 2022, SB AZ 1138, one of the many legislation preventing trans children from accessing healthcare, was signed into law by Arizona Governor Doug Ducey. While this law, makes it illegal for minors to have gender reassignment surgery, there is an exception made for those who have a “sex development disorder including an individual with external biological sex characteristics that are irresolvably ambiguous.” A more preferred term over “sex development disorder” is intersex. Rather than operating out of a medical necessity, this legislation in Arizona and other legislation in several states, allows medical providers to operate on intersex children for the sole purpose of fitting them into the sex binary by assigning them male or female. It has been proved that sex is non-binary and that this surgery is harmful on both a physical and emotional level.